President Donald Trump.
President Trump seems to have backed away from expanded background checks saying "America already has strong background checks" and that it's a "slippery slope". The Hill. He did say that there were "missing areas" but backed away from the "meaningful background checks" he advocated for in the wake of two mass shootings earlier this month. Instead, President Trump advocated for more mental health hospitals as a solution to mass shootings. The President said he was working with Democrats but he also said that they were not strong on the 2nd Amendment and would like to get rid of it entirely.
My Comment:
As a gun owner I am very happy that President Trump seems to have seen the light here. Universal background checks would have done nothing to stop any of these mass shootings we had recently because the attackers in each case either bought their weapons legally or did something that was already against the law, like utilizing a straw buyer or stealing their weapons. It would however be yet another assault on gun rights that would only effect the law abiding citizens that already follow the rules.
Why did President Trump change his mind? The media is saying it is all because of the NRA. While I agree they probably did have an effect as they are one of the most important civil rights groups in the country with a large amount of influence, I don't know if that is correct. Despite their recent problems I do think that they had a positive influence in this case. If the NRA is good for anything, it is lobbying and they did a good job of doing so in this case.
However, I don't think it's fair for them to get all of the credit. I am guessing that President Trump got quite a bit of pushback from his base on his comments on gun control. I know that I personally e-mailed him saying I opposed new laws and I doubt I was the only one. In all the conservative circles I hang out on online I saw almost no support for new gun control and the few people that did got heavily criticized for it.
I never buy polling that says people support gun control as many gun rights supporters either don't answer the polling or deliberately lie about it as they have zero trust for the kind of people that ask the question. My guess is that President Trump had access to more accurate information, like the number of people that wrote him and other GOP leaders saying they did not want further gun control.
I do have to notice that no mention was made of red flag laws from either President Trump or the media reports covering this. Trump came out in support of those as well but I haven't heard him back off of them like he has for background checks. Without evidence either way I can only speculate.
I am, of course, against red flag laws. In theory they could help prevent violent crimes but the problem I have with it is the same problem I have with NSA spying. Under Republicans the system would be fine but the Democrats would use it to abuse their political opponents. Red flag laws would be used to both harass gun owners and maybe even get them killed. I'm not sure that President Trump realizes that fact.
I am, for once, happy that the American media's focus is so fleeting. They are completely unable to focus on one story for very long. Since the mass shootings we have gone from "NEW GUN LAWS" to "Trump's a racist" to "Trump's crazy for wanting to buy Greenland" and now "Trump's economy is bad". If the media had an attention span that lasted more than five minutes they might have been able to push new gun laws. But it appears that they have now failed.
The biggest concern is that some new mass shooting will happen. Let me rephrase that, as nobody will care if there is another one with a black attacker and black victims. If a mass shooting happens with a white attacker or one that is motivated by non-Islamist/non-Leftist ideology, the media and the Democrats will begin yet another push for gun control. They will probably fail yet again but they are going further and further away from sanity on this issue and we should be very worried if they ever regain power again.
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